Preview: Re: Enough with the tackle. LETS SEE SOME FISH!
Tried a little experiment. These mud minnows seem to be an important part of the forage where I fish this time of year. 3 colors-equal number of casts (roughly) for each color in sets of 10, rotating between the 3. Color chosen for first 10 casts each day chosen at random. Equivalent number of casts for each bait on each day. I thought I might run the test until I hooked into 30 bass total and see if the results differed from the expected 0.33 catch rate per color. But, alas I broke a bill on the ayu and I'm less interested in the experiment than I was at the start.

How’s this for some dock fishing fun? Watched this redfish shoot out from under a dock and crush my jerkbait, and the battle was on! 842c Conquest/Stile SS got the job done with some heavy drag and all out tug of war. Always nice to put the gear up to a strong test. He got really close to the dock on a couple of runs, but it was either let him break off or pull as hard as you can and try to get him out. I chose the latter. Kind of makes me laugh a little when I think of the gear we use for bass fishing in cover after something like this, it’s not even close

How’s this for some dock fishing fun? Watched this redfish shoot out from under a dock and crush my jerkbait, and the battle was on! 842c Conquest/Stile SS got the job done with some heavy drag and all out tug of war. Always nice to put the gear up to a strong test. He got really close to the dock on a couple of runs, but it was either let him break off or pull as hard as you can and try to get him out. I chose the latter. Kind of makes me laugh a little when I think of the gear we use for bass fishing in cover after something like this, it’s not even close

That's a bull, Jeff! Big fish on light gear are always fun. Congrats on putting your hands on that one. I assume that's a slot fish?

Try not to let your mind wander. It is much too small to be outside unsupervised.

That's a bull, Jeff! Big fish on light gear are always fun. Congrats on putting your hands on that one. I assume that's a slot fish?

Light gear is a blast and teaches a lot about how to actually fight a fish. Seem to always hook the big reds and jacks on the lightest combo since I’m usually trout fishing when the bite happens, but I definitely love when it happens! Our slot is 18-27”, and this fish was over 40”, so a little big.

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Prespawn beast from Lake Havasu on the Ned. A great way to finish a solid day of fishing!

Great fish Todd. Havasu is a fun lake, I bet the Ned kills it over there!

That setup in the picture is hard to put down because it is perfect for the NED. It is a Point Blank 6'9" MLXF with an SV105 with an R+ inductor spring. I like to fish a 1/10 ounce head. The Robo Ned worm weighs a little more and is easier to cast in the wind that Havasu had on Sunday. The water temp is still in the upper 50's in the a.m., and many of the smallmouth are the first to spawn. I only caught two largemouth to about 20 smallmouth. Most of the fish that I am catching are relating to a bed, but I'm not bed fishing.

Yes I would guess she had already spawned. Though in FL some fish will still spawn into April. They start early in November but most of the spawning is in Jan/Feb.

We had fish spawning on the 4th of July on my home lake (DVL) about a decade ago. It has a quarry that is almost 300 feet deep. A few deep and cold stragglers came up late out of the depths to spawn. I was bed fishing next to an FLW pro named Art Berry. I think he won a big tournament in Florida. We were laughing because we couldn't believe we were bed fishing in July.